According to a new study, some 60 percent of countries where malaria is endemic lack solid information about the quality of available drugs to treat the deadly disease.

The study, published in the Malaria Journal in April, looked at 251 reports from 104-malaria endemic countries since 1946, and found that of the 43 countries that had some information about anti-malarial quality, more than half of these - 25 - had only one or two published reports available.

The Botswana High Court in Gaborone will on Thursday, 12 June 2014, hear arguments in a case challenging the government's refusal to provide antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to foreign prisoners.

Two foreign HIV-positive prisoners and the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) have taken government to court, arguing that the country’s policy of denying ARV treatment to foreign prisoners living with HIV is unlawful and unconstitutional.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Angola has called on pregnant women to adhere to voluntary testing of HIV/AIDS in order to reduce the epidemic by 90 percent by 2015.

Speaking to ANGOP, UNAIDS director, Sihaka Tsemo, pointed out that pregnant women should try to know as early as possible about their HIV status in order to begin treatment immediately and therefore protect their children from the virus.

The National Institute of Combat of AIDS (INLS) says that, at least 200 000 people live with the HIV virus in Angola.

Speaking at a workshop on the strengthening of the actions for the acceleration of the civil society's response to HIV/AIDS, INLS director, Dulcelina Serrano, disclosed that since 2004, the prevalence has risen from 0.6 to 2.3 percent.

Serrano further adds that among HIV-positive pregnant women, the figure stands at 15 300, where 119 400 people need to receive antiretroviral treatment, including pregnant women.

Director of UNAIDS regional support team for eastern and Southern Africa, Professor Sheila Tlou, says she is honoured to be awarded with the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Botswana.

Tlou, who received the Non Academic Services Champion award for her outstanding work, says her 28 years of experience has taught her to put other people before herself.

She adds that when she became Botswana's Health Minister in 2004, she saved many lives despite criticism from western countries.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the world can learn from South Africa's ‘impressive’ rollout of antiretroviral treatment to more than two million people but too many of those on treatment are being ‘lost’ in the system.

Director of the WHO’s HIV department, Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, points out that South Africa has shown other countries that access to treatment could be scaled up quickly.

The Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) has warned that the poorest patients will suffer if provincial health departments do not pay the National Health Laboratories Services (NHLS) monies owed to it.

CANSA head of health Professor Michael Herbst maintains that the NHLS renders a crucial service to cancer patients.